From a series on English monarchs, extending from the House of Wessex to the House of Windsor. Everybody probably knows that the epithet for Æthelred II , “Æthelred the Unready”, is an Old English pun: Æthelred means “well advised” or “well counseled”, while unready means “poorly advised” or “poorly counseled”; thus he’s “Well Advised/Poorly Advised”. Richard Abels’ biography suggests Æthelred could have been described just as well as “Unlucky” rather than “Unready”; while some of the unfortunate events of his reign could reasonably be attributed to bad advice, many of them seem to be equally well explained as bad luck.

Æthelred’s rule got off to a dubious start; his older half-brother, King Edward, was murdered on the way to visiting his stepmother (and Æthelred’s mother) Ælfthryth. Interestingly enough, the contemporary account is Edward was killed by his retainers while on the road, while later accounts blame Ælfthryth, who supposedly had a servant stab Edward in the back while she offered him a drink. The recently reviewed Sexuality and Its Impact on History notes Ælfthryth later acquired a reputation as sort of an Anglo-Saxon Jezebel; supposedly bending forward while offering the drink so Edward could look down her blouse, thus providing a perfect target for the backstab; she was also later accused of witchcraft, being able to turn herself into a mare so she could enjoy the attentions of stallions. Abels notes these accusations didn’t come until several hundred years after the event; Edward became a saint in the meantime.

At any rate, Æthelred was only eight or nine at the time of his stepbrother’s murder so was unlikely to be personally involved; however, Abels notes Æthelred never made any attempt to avenge his stepbrother’s murder – an obligation on kin in Anglo-Saxon society – even though the murderers were known. When he reached the age of 16 (984), he did the first act that might lead to his eventual appellation; he announced he was taking over government for himself and replaced his existing advisers – including his mother, Ælfthryth – with his own followers. The young Æthelred seems to been unfavorably disposed toward the Church – or at least not as favorably disposed as his predecessors - but Abels cautions this was not a broad attack on all religious property, just cases where appropriating Church property was opportune. Sometime later, the kingdom experienced an event that would qualify as “unlucky”; Viking raiders , who had been fairly passive for years, arrived again. The Old English poem The Battle of Maldon dates to this time; it’s about the Anglo-Saxon noble Byrthnoth who’s defeated and killed by Vikings at Maldon (Abels notes Brythnoth has historically been seen as foolish, since he chivalrously allowed the Vikings to cross a causeway and deploy before engaging; however he comments that Brythnoth needed to bring the Vikings to battle; as long as they stayed on the island they occupied they were invulnerable, and Brythnoth’s army couldn’t remain in the field long enough to wait them out). At any rate, Æthelred’s response to the Vikings – as advised by Archbishop of Canterbury Sigeric – was to pay them off, with £10K (I have no idea what that is in modern purchasing power, but presumably a lot). The English tried to prepare militarily for next year’s invasion – rebuilding the fleet and the army – but it was a disaster; one of the English commanders warned the Vikings in advance and the Viking fleet escaped one English naval force and defeated the other. The remained the pattern for years; Æthelred delegated army and/or fleet command to a noble, who fled or failed to give battle. Abels suggests this as another reason for Æthelred’s poor reputation; an English king was supposed to lead the army on person, not hand it off to somebody else. Æthelred further stained his reputation by ordering the St. Brice’s Day Massacre, in which every Danish resident of England was to be killed (note that these were not Viking raiders but people who had been settled for years). A group of Danes in Oxford took refuge in a church; in an egregious violation of the rules of sanctuary, the English burned it. Abels notes archaeology confirms the massacre; a mass burial of charred skeletons of Scandinavian origin was found in 2008. However, the massacre seems to have been confined to Oxford; there’s no evidence of anything like it from elsewhere in England and people with Scandinavian names continue to turn up in Æthelred’s court. The raids continued; eventually things got so bad that Æthelred hired one Viking, Thorkel the Tall, to fight off the others at considerable expense. Needless to say, that backfired; Thorkel harried the south of England while other Vikings under Swein Forkbeard attacked in the north. Eventually most English nobles accepted Swein as King of England and Æthelred fled to Normandy. Swein died shortly thereafter and his son Cnut (Canute the Great, the guy who demonstrated he could not turn back the tide) became king. However, a significant fraction petitioned Æthelred to return, and he did; he didn’t live long and his son Edmund took the throne.

As mentioned, the general tenor of Æthelred’s reign is more bad luck than bad advice; Abels doesn’t speculate but I wonder if some of opprobrium came from nobles blaming churchmen advisors or churchmen blaming the nobility. Abels points out if Æthelred had died earlier, his reputation wouldn’t have been that bad. As it was, the Anglo Saxon Chronicle says the following:

“When the enemy was in the east, then the army was in the west; when they were in the south then the army was in the north. Then all the counselors were ordered to the king, and it then had to decide how this country should be defended. But whatever was then decided, it did not stand for even a month. In the end there was no head man who wanted to gather an army, but each fled as best he could, nor in the end would one shire help another.”

This is an easy and enjoyable read; Abels’ writing is clear, despite having to deal with an extensive cast of characters. A nice selection of color plates illustrating various things from the text – the site of the Battle of Maldon, for example. Footnotes; rather than a bibliography there’s “Suggestions for Further Reading”, with short commentaries on the books referenced. The index seems sparse but I had no trouble finding things I wanted to look up. ( )